Certain Nutritional Disorders of Lab Animals Due to Vitamin E Deficiency
By Alwin M. Pappenheimer, MD
Summary: A fascinating snapshot of some of the early animal research testing vitamin E deficiency. Dr. Pappenheimer details the specific cell and tissue degeneration resulting from feeding different species of animals a diet lacking vitamin E, the result most often being lesions in skeletal muscle that Pappenheimer refers to as a kind of "nutritional muscular dystrophy." Neural lesions were also observed in some species. In perhaps the most fascinating finding, a partial vitamin E deficiency in the diet of pregnant rats was shown to manifest only in the rats' offspring, echoing the findings of Drs. Weston Price and Francis Pottenger, Jr., in the 1930s that the effects of malnutrition are passed on to subsequent generations. Pappenheimer concludes, "The fact that a partial deficiency of vitamin E in the mother may manifest itself only in the offspring seems to me to be one of the most significant lessons that one can draw from this work. May not similar things happen in human diseases, and help to explain the supposed hereditary or familial character of certain nervous and muscular disorders?" From Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital. Reprint 57, 1941.
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The Chemical Background of Malnutrition and Heredity
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: It's been said that Dr. Lee's theories were typically 50 years ahead of his time. In this article from 1956, the great pioneer challenges scientific consensus of the time by stating that the effects of malnutrition in potential parents are inherited by their offspring. "It is a well-established fact that malnutrition can bring about morphological changes that are transmitted to offspring," Lee boldly states. "This seems to explode the generally held opinion that acquired characteristics cannot be transmitted to offspring." Today the science of epigenetics is confirming Dr. Lee's seemingly radical claim, churning out study after study showing that a person's diet can create changes in not only their own genetic expression but in that of their children and even their grandchildren. From Natural Food and Farming, 1956.
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